Starmer Promised to
‘tear the poison of
anti-Semitism out of Labour’ – what he meant was expelling supporters of the
Palestinians from the Labour Party
Important Update
This article should be read in conjunction with Asa Winstanley's
recent article
in Electronic Intifada which proves conclusively that Starmer’s witch-hunt is
being driven by the Israel Lobby and the Board of Deputies
When Starmer suspended
Jeremy Corbyn 2 weeks ago I predicted that his expulsion was inevitable. Starmer’s
reaction when an NEC panel voted to reinstate him demonstrates that expulsion
was his original intention. Starmer then
did the next best thing. He expelled Corbyn from the Parliamentary Labour
Party.
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When Starmer was elected
in April I wrote
that ‘Mogadon Man Assumes the Leadership
of the Labour Party… The Fight against the Right begins.’ Craig Murray wrote
‘Sadly,
Sir Keir Starmer has all the captivating exuberance of a stagnant pond, with
the murky secrets of his dubious past polluting the fetid waters.
In the circumstances that was
rather mild! I followed
this up, on May 13, warning that
‘If
Labour Wants to Win the Next Election then it needs to Dump Starmer fast - COVID-19
Demonstrates why Sir Keir is so useless – He has Nothing to Say’.
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The Campaign Group - A complete failure to understand the 'antisemitism' campaign
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Unfortunately Momentum and the Campaign Group
ignored my advice. Many people are inclined to call them the ‘soft left’. I
prefer the term STUPID LEFT. As Einstein is said to have remarked, the
definition of insanity is repeating something over and over again and expecting
a different result. For the past 5 years, Momentum and Corbyn have repeatedly
tried appeasing the Labour Right and the Zionist Jewish Labour Movement. The
more they gave them the more they demanded. The more they apologised, the more
ground they conceded.
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Jon Lansman, Who Singlehandedly Did More to Damage Corbyn than anyone else, Believed that the Election of Sturmer was a Victory for the Left
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These fools even got it into their heads that
Starmer was going to preserve Corbyn’s manifesto pledges and that he was a
‘unity’ candidate. Anyone acquainted with Starmer’s record would have known
that that was a lie. Starmer is and always has been from Labour’s hard right.
https://youtu.be/M4hW2X37z8g
As Director of Public ProsecutionsStarmer prosecuted
Julian Assange and to this day refuses to speak out about his incarceration for
being an investigative journalist. Starmer prosecuted
women for making false allegations of rape whilst trying
to cover for the Police who murdered Ian Tomlinson. Starmer is the only
MP who is a member of the international ruling class body, the Trilateral
Commission.
Not the least of Starmer’s crimes
was the fact that he was first person
to welcome
my expulsion. This always struck me as curious.
Why, if someone is sincere in their opposition to anti-Semitism should
they welcome the expulsion of a Jewish anti-racist?
Starmer however, unlike Corbyn and the Campaign
Group/ Momentum is not stupid. Cunning, deceitful, dishonest but not stupid.
From the beginning of his leadership he has repeated his promise to ‘tear the poison of anti-Semitism out of
Labour by the roots’. That was what justified the sacking of Rebecca
Long-Bailey and Lloyd Russell-Moyle and the dressing
down of Stephen Kinnock. Not once has any member of the stupid left
challenged his narrative.
Starmer went out of his way, from the start, to
ensure that the EHRC Report was as damning as possible. That was why he paid
off the racist liars and frauds among Labour’s senior staff who had campaigned against
the Labour Party in 2017. This despite
being told that Labour had a winning case. That way their version of
events, that they had been prevented by Corbyn in tackling ‘anti-Semitism’
could not be contradicted without legal consequences.
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The Cowardice of Lloyd Russell-Moyle Prevented Him Signing a Petition in Support of Corbyn
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Starmer wanted the EHRC Report to be as bad as
possible in order that he could wield it as a weapon. As it turned out the EHRC
Report was insubstantial and evasive. Despite ignoring the evidence of Jewish
Voices for Labour and my own offer, as the first Jewish person to be expelled,
to give testimony its Report was a botched political stitch up. The suggestion
that Ken Livingstone and Pam Bromley had been guilty of harassment is not worth
the paper it is written on. Political speech and denying that there is an
anti-Semitism problem is not harassment. It would be laughed out court. That is
why Starmer and his glove puppet, David Evans, have been so concerned to prevent
local Labour parties discussing the Report.
Hence Starmer’s
reaction to Labour’s
Leaked Report was to attack those who leaked the Report whilst rewarding Labour’s
racist and misogynist former staff. The last thing Starmer could afford was any
undermining of McNicol’s lies.
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John McDonnell with his slavish support for Starmer hauls up the White Flag of surrender
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It is or should be obvious that Starmer isn’t the
least concerned about racism. ‘Anti-Semitism’ to him is what ‘Communism’ was to
Joe McCarthy. It is a means of denouncing his critics and smearing the Left. Back in April I wrote
that
If anyone had any doubts
about who and what (Sir) Keir Starmer represents, his Shadow Cabinet
appointments today should lay them to rest. Starmer represents a return
of the Blairite Right. Even Barry Gardiner, a supporter of Labour Friends of
Israel and easily the most articulate member of Corbyn’s shadow cabinet has
been sacked,
as has Ian Lavery, former President of the NUM and one of the few working class
members in the PLP as well as Jon Trickett.
It is not as if Starmer
didn’t give a clear warning of his intentions. It is the cowardice and pathetic
reformism of the Labour Left (if one can even call it such) that meant they
didn’t heed the warnings. The signs of what Starmer’s real intentions were
many:
i.
Starmer’s ‘constructive opposition’
in the ‘national interest’ to Boris Johnson’s disastrous COVID-19 strategy as the
government presided over the highest death rate in Europe. The official death
toll is 50,000 but the real death toll is far
higher. The failure of the Tories is directly
linked to the privatization of the NHS and the outsourcing of PPE and Test
and Trace. Far from being ‘efficient’ the private sector is only efficient at
maximizing its own profits. Channel 4 Dispatches has just
shown how a private lab (they used to be in-house) treated test results
cavalierly, allowing cross infection and leaking test tubes. Starmer’s failure
to call out the health dangers of privatisation should have been taken
seriously.
ii.
Starmer reversed
Labour’s policy to support Kashmiri independence. Why? Because Hindu chauvinists, supporters of the
far-Right BJP government, accused supporters of Kashmiri independence and opponents
of discrimination against the Untouchables of ‘Hinduphobia’. The ‘Anti-Semitism’ scam is winning widespread
admiration amongst racists.
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The new leaders of Momentum (right) are no different from Lansman (left)
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Just as opponents of Israeli Apartheid and Zionism are
called ‘anti-Semites’ so Hindu bigots are calling opponents of caste
discrimination ‘Hinduphobes’. And who
turned up at a House of Commons meeting to pledge his support for their
campaign to keep caste discrimination legal?
Gideon
Falter of the CAA! Starmer is very sensitive to the feelings of racists and
chauvinists.
iii.
Starmer followed this up by sacking
the weak and insipid Rebecca Long-Bailey, the Momentum candidate in the
leadership elections. She had retweeted
Maxine Peak’s statement that US Police learnt the neck hold from Israeli
Police. Given that hundreds of thousands of US cops have been trained
by the Israeli Police, it was a reasonable assumption, yet Starmer called this
an ‘anti-Semitic conspiracy theory’.
iv.
Starmer may be concerned with
‘anti-Semitism’ and the feelings of fellow Zionists but when it came to Black Lives
Matter he had no hesitation in declaring that it was a ‘moment’ that had
passed. Concern about genuine racism against Black people, the Windrush scandal
and ‘hostile environment’ hasn’t even left his lips.
Yet what was the response of Momentum to the suspension of
Corbyn? Was it to call for Starmer to go? Was there a call for defiance of
David Evans declaration that discussion of the suspension was not ‘competent
business’ for Labour parties? Andrew Scattergood, Momentum’s Co-Chair issued a statement
that ‘This suspension risks politicising Labour's response to
antisemitism.’ Where have they been? The ‘anti-Semitism’
campaign has been political from the start. It has been the means by which the
Right has progressively undermined Corbyn.
Even
Scatterbrain realised that this statement was hopelessly inadequate and
Momentum therefore issued another statement, which was even worse. It read:
‘The
suspension of Jeremy Corbyn by the Labour Party leadership is a factional
attack on the left that inevitably undermines the fight against
anti-semitism and makes a mockery of Keir Starmer’s pledge to unite the
Party. Tonight our Party is more divided than ever.’
There was a similar statement
on Youtube and in an interview
with LBC.
False Allegations of ‘Anti-Semitism’ Are
Destroying the Labour Left
It is the inability of the Labour Left to come
to grips with the Zionists’ anti-semitism hoax which sealed Corbyn’s fate and
is now consigning the Labour Left to oblivion. It is a consequence of their
acceptance of pro-imperialist politics in combination with identity politics.
Jews may be a minority in Britain but they are not an oppressed minority. Today
Jews are a privileged white group which has voted Tory for the past 50 years
(except for the initial Blair years). Only 14%
voted for Ed Miliband, Labour’s first Jewish leader, in 2015. Jewish
support for the Tories has nothing to
do with Labour anti-Semitism and everything to do with their class position in
society.
The Tory Party has historically
been a racist party, including an anti-Semitic one. It wasn’t in the Labour
Party that an MP was told
‘
''If I had my way people like you wouldn't be allowed in this place.''
'And I said: ''Sorry, when you
say people like me, do you mean lower-class or Jewish?''
'To which he replied: ''Both.'''
It was the Tory Party and the MP was former
Speaker, John Bercow. In the same interview Bercow, when asked about Corbyn and
anti-Semitism said
about Corbyn that ‘I've never detected so much as a whiff of anti-Semitism’.
When anti-Semitism was a form of state racism in
Britain, when the Metropolitan Police supported the British Union of Fascists
and attacked Jewish workers was the time when Jews voted overwhelmingly for the
Left. Not just the Labour Party. In 1945
Phil Piratin, was elected for Mile End as a Communist with an estimated 50% of
his vote coming from Jews
in London’s East End.
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This was the meme that was part of the evidence that got Simon Hindmarsh expelled - and Corbyn just nodded this through
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Jews today no longer live in the East End. They have
migrated to London’s middle class suburbs of Golders Green, Edgware and
Redbridge. Britain’s Jews have changed as society has changed. Jews aren’t
victims of racist murders, police harassment or Stop and Search. There is no
Jewish Windrush or ‘hostile environment’. Jews aren’t deported because they are
Jews. Yet the identity politics of much of the Left prevents them from relating
racism to class.
Racism isn’t the same as prejudice. It is a form
of class oppression but only more so. It is an attack on the most exploited and
vulnerable sections of society. Jews are no longer in that position. They are
no longer society’s scapegoats.
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Even the Sun can see what Scatterbrain and McDonnell can't
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When Momentum’s Scatterbrain declared that Corbyn’s
suspension ‘undermines the fight against
anti-Semitism’ he is demonstrating that there are no limits to the
stupidity of Momentum which, under Lansman, did more than Boris Johnson to lose
the 2019 election.
Why does Scatterbrain imagine that the Daily Mail and the Tory press are so
concerned about ‘anti-Semitism’ when no other form of racism disturb them in
the slightest? It should be clear that the ‘anti-Semitism campaign had, but one
target, and that was Jeremy Corbyn.
Since March 2016 when I was suspended I have
repeatedly emphasised that Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone, Tony
Greenstein, Peter Willsman and finally Chris Williamson were not the real
targets. We were just collateral
damage. The real target was always
Corbyn even if he didn’t realise it.
Corbyn was a victim of what has come to be known
as the Stockholm
Syndrome. The more the Zionists attacked him the more he understood them
and apologised. I’ve lost count of the number of friends that Corbyn threw
under the bus in the vain hope that he would satisfy his enemies. Len McLuskey
put his finger on it when he said
that
‘Corbyn
Has Answered Concerns On Anti-Semitism, But Jewish Community Leaders Are
Refusing To Take 'Yes' For An Answer’.
Unfortunately McLuskey
refused to face up to the logic of his own statement. He was correct. Whatever
Corbyn did not satisfy the Zionist leaders of the Board of Deputies. McLuskey admitted
‘I am at a
loss to understand the motives of the leadership of the Jewish community – the
Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Jewish Labour
Movement.’
The answer was, as Bob
Dylan once wrote, ‘blowing in the wind’. The
reason why the ‘Jewish leaders’ i.e. Zionists
at the Board of Deputies refused to take yes for an answer was that there was nothing that Corbyn could have
done to satisfy them. The Zionists weren’t genuinely interested in
anti-Semitism. They had but one goal – the removal of Corbyn. That was why the
JLM was refounded
in 2015.
It was clear to me from
the very start that what was happening was an orchestrated campaign which had
been tested in Latin America, in particular Nicaragua
and Venezuela,
where ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations had been leveled by Zionist groups and US
Administrations at radical regimes. ‘Anti-Semitism’ has been patented and used
as a weapon of the Right for over 30 years.
Contrast this with
Argentina under a neo-Nazi Junta between 1976-1983. They tortured
to death up to 3,000 Jews as part of their slaughter of 30,000
Argentinians. Yet the Zionists and
Israel remained
silent. Genuine anti-Semitism has never bothered Israel or the Zionist
movement. From the Czarist regime at the turn of the 20th century to
Hitler the Zionists have remained indifferent to genuine anti-Semitism.
We see this today. Who are
Israel’s
best friends in the world? The anti-Semitic
Hungarian regime, the far-Right anti-Semitic Polish government and the neo-Nazi
Azov Battalion in Ukraine to whom Israel supplies weapons. Not forgetting
of course Trump who has repeatedly
told American Jews that Israel is their ‘real home’. Which is what the
Zionists also believe. When a White Supremacist gunman murdered 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh
synagogue, Israeli Labor Party leader Avi Gabbay told
them that they should emigrate and come to their ‘real home’. Which is what the anti-Semites also say.
Clues for the Stupid Left – Scatterbrain
and the Campaign Group – that the ‘Anti-Semitism’ Campaign was about
Zionism/Israel not Jew hatred
On a personal level I have no sympathy for
Corbyn. I consider him a disloyal, treacherous fool who had it within his power
to become Prime Minister and he threw it all away by throwing his own
supporters to the wolves. Corbyn knew, more than most, that the ritual
accusation of ‘anti-Semitism’ is levelled at all Palestine solidarity
supporters.
There are many reasons why the anti-Semitism
campaign was a confected hoax, orchestrated by the Israeli, British and US governments.
Here are some of those reasons:
1.
It is curious that despite being told repeatedly that
Labour is overrun with anti-Semitism, which according to Sturmer, is a ‘stain’
on the Labour Party no one has actually produced any Jewish victims of this ‘anti-Semitism’.
All they can point to are opinion polls that say British Jews were living in
fear. If true this is testimony to the ability of Zionist leaders, coupled with
the British press, to instil fear in some British Jews by false and lying
propaganda. I’ll wager a bet that if researchers had asked these idiots why they feared the Labour Party they
would either have no answer or they would reply ‘Israel’.
2.
Accusations of Anti-Semitism were seen as far more
likely to divide the Left than say hostility to Corbyn because of his
opposition to Austerity. That is a product of the infatuation of much of the
left with identity politics.
According to the Guardian the BNP congratulated Margaret Hodge on her racist housing policies - this creature is now Chair of the JLM's Parliamentary Group
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3.
If concern over ‘anti-Semitism’ was serious why was it
that the Labour Right – Tom Watson, Margaret Hodge etc. – didn’t display any
concern over other forms of racism? Hodge had even been sent a
bunch of flowers by the BNP because they approved of her Whites Only
housing policy for Barking.
Tom
Watson demonised
asylum seekers in the Hodge Hill by-election in 2004 with the slogan ‘Labour is on your side, the Lib Dems are on the side of
failed asylum seekers.’ Watson also supported
the racist Labour MP Phil Woolas in 2010 when the High Court removed him from
Parliament, for a campaign which involved trying to ‘make
the white folks angry’.
4.
The Board of Deputies has never opposed anti-Semitism in its history. In 1936 it told Jews not to oppose the British Union of
Fascists and Oswald Moseley. In the 1970s it repeated that with the National
Front.
5.
If the Zionist Board of Deputies was so concerned about
anti-Semitism why did it have nothing to say about the Tory alliance
with fascists and anti-Semites in the European Parliament from 2009-2020?
6.
Why did the Board of Deputies say nothing about the
Tories alliance
with anti-Semites in the European Council? Boris Johnson even sacked Lord Richard
Balfe, a former Tory MEP, for objecting to sitting down with parties like the
Swedish Democrats whose members parade with swastikas.
7.
Why is it that the only ‘anti-racist’ demonstration
that the Board has ever held was in March 2018 against Labour just before the
local elections? How is it that racists
like Ian Paisley Jnr and Norman Tebbit attended
an ‘anti-racist’ demonstration. The Board has never called demonstrations
against the National Front or British Union of Fascists.
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When Israel began using snipers to murder unarmed demonstrators in Gaza, the Board of Deputies blamed the Palestinians for their death
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8.
The Board of Deputies is hardwired by its constitution
into supporting Israel right or wrong. When Israel began using snipers to shoot
unarmed demonstrators in Gaza the Board of Deputies supported
them.
9.
Why, if the concern over anti-Semitism was genuine,
was the same concern not extended to other forms of racism? Luke Akehurst, who has just been elected to
Labour’s NEC openly
supports Israel’s snipers. Are the lives of Palestinians worth less
than Jewish lives? Over 70 Palestinian children have been shot dead by these
snipers yet Formby and Corbyn, despite my complaining to them, did absolutely nothing. Even The Telegraph carried
a UN
Report that said that Israel deliberately targeted children. Naturally
Starmer or his Blairite choice as General Secretary aren’t going to expel
Akehurst but it was Corbyn and Formby who did nothing.
10.
Why if the concern about anti-Semitism is genuine are
anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jews being suspended and expelled? Its a funny
type of campaign which targets anti-racist Jews whilst ignoring Zionists.
11.
If the concern was really about anti-Semitism why did
the Zionists clamour for Labour to adopt,
in September 2018, the IHRA
definition of anti-Semitism. A definition which has been panned by former
Jewish Court of Appeal Judge Stephen Sedley (Defining
Anti-Semitism), Hugh
Tomlinson QC, Geoffrey
Robinson QC, Sir Geoffrey
Bindman and even David
Feldman of the Pears Institute. The
IHRA is a definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ which conflates anti-Semitism and
anti-Zionism. Its a definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ that anti-Semites are quite happy
with!
12.
If the campaign was really about anti-Semitism, then
why has the newly elected NEC member, Gemma Bolton, been made the subject of an
investigation for saying that Israel was an Apartheid State. [See Labour
probes new NEC member following 'Israel apartheid state' posts]
13.
Why is it that all those who are now targeted for
expulsion under the fast track procedures that Formby and Corbyn introduced
questioned about their attitudes to Israel not Jews?
On any objective analysis
the campaign against ‘anti-Semitism’ was always about Israel and Zionism. In
December of 2016 Corbyn voluntarily proposed the adoption of the IHRA’s 38 word
definition of anti-Semitism? The idiocy of Corbyn beggars belief.
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If you call Israel what it is, a racist apartheid state that is now 'antisemitic' according to Herr Sturmer
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Not only did Corbyn
make a rod for his own back by introducing the concept of ‘denialism’
whereby if you argue that the Labour Party doesn’t have an ‘anti-Semitism’
problem then you are ‘part of the problem’. This is the same kind of ‘logic’
that led to women and men in the Salem Witchhunt being hanged. As Elizabeth Purdy wrote:
Those who publicly questioned the guilt of a defendant were likely
to be accused of witchcraft themselves.
To compound his
idiocy and cowardice Corbyn opposed
Open Selection at the 2018 Labour Conference. Once again he appeased his enemies.
They have repaid him handsomely by threatening to resign from the Labour Party
if Corbyn resumes the Labour Whip.
And if this was not
enough at the 2019 Conference Corbyn and Formby lied by arguing that
the proposed ‘fast track’ expulsion procedures, whereby you have no hearing and
the NCC is bypassed, would only be used for ‘egregious’ cases. This has been
used to expel hundreds of socialists and anti-racists.
Corbyn was the author
of his own misfortune but he wasn’t the only one. McDonnell, who had previously
traded on his far-left credentials was even worse than Corbyn. He intervened when even Corbyn and his office
wanted to discipline Margaret Hodge. McDonnell played the role of a scab
throughout telling us to listen to the Tory Board. He said that he was ‘tearing his hair out’ about
‘anti-Semitism’. McDonnell constantly was the appeaser-in-chief.
What
can we do now?
I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that
the fight against the Right in the Labour Party is becoming hopeless, not least
because of the capitulation of most of the formerly Corbyn left. A campaign of
Open Defiance of David Evans is needed, a refusal by local parties to accept
Evan’s dictats. Suspensions and expulsions without a fair hearing should not be
recognised.
Campaign Group MPs would, if they even knew what
the word solidarity meant, resign the whip in sympathy with Corbyn. As it is
these cowards and opportunists rush like gadarene swine to distance themselves
from Corbyn. When a petition in support of Corbyn was circulated only 22
Campaign Group MPs signed it. Careerists like Russell Lloyd-Moyle refused to
sign it because it was ‘political’ as if the suspension of Corbyn was a
humanitarian venture.
The latest letter from 28 Campaign Group MPs has
not been signed by Momentum front benchers like Sam Tarry. This is
disgraceful. So-called ‘left’ MPs and
Tarry is a full-on Lansmanite, are prioritising their own personal careers over
the fate of Corbyn and the left.
Corbyn himself should declare that he is sitting
as an independent socialist MP and will stand again at the next election.
Indeed it would be a good idea if he resigned and stood for re-election in a
by-election. Starmer’s decision to suspend him would blow up in his face if, as
is likely, Corbyn won the re-election. At that point Corbyn and those
socialists left in the Campaign Group should announce that they are leaving
Labour to set up a Socialist Party.
Victory can still be salvaged from defeat but
unfortunately the Campaign Group and Corbyn himself is so lacking in any
Marxist or class politics that they are blown hither and thither in the gusts
of capitalist reaction. Of one thing we should be clear. The Labour Party has
been captured by Zionist and imperialist supporters who are as dedicated
supporters of neo-liberal capitalism as Boris Johnson.
Tony Greenstein
